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The ICEM heralds a 20 July resolution by the Goodyear Tyre Makers&rsquo; Union in Thailand, part of ICEM affiliate Petroleum and Chemical Workers&rsquo; Federation (PCFT), to actively recruit the growing number of fixed-term contract workers in the factory. The union&rsquo;s resolution appeared the very next day on the Tyre Makers&rsquo; bulletin board inside the Goodyear-Thailand Ltd. plant in Bangkok. 
 
The union has recorded 120 workers thus far in 2009 with whom Goodyear has brought in as short-term contract employees. Most have had experience working at the tyre plant because, prior to 2009, they had been employed through a labour agency. Now they work side by side with regular workers doing the same jobs in the same production lines, such as sprays, pigments, trucking, apexing, timer, etc. 
 
Thai law, under the Industrial Relations Act of 1975, clearly states that where there is a collective agreement &ndash; such as at Goodyear Thailand Ltd. &ndash; management cannot hire workers on individual contracts unless wages, benefits, and conditions exceed the negotiated agreement. The 120 workers, many of whom are now working directly for Goodyear on 11-month contracts, are paid significantly less than the plant&rsquo;s 600 regular workers. 
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The collective agreement between the Tyre Makers&rsquo; Union and Goodyear excludes workers performing work under definite terms of employment, which appears to counter the law. It should be noted that Goodyear&rsquo;s decision to switch from a labour agency to fixed-term contract workers came about because a portion of the Labour Protection Act of 1998 was amended to facilitate this. But Goodyear has violated the spirit of that amendment by not improving the work conditions of the contract workers. Most are paid at the Thai minimum wage. 
 
Goodyear-Thailand has refused to consult with the union on any matters related to contract labour, and instead has persisted in defaming PCFT members who bring the company&rsquo;s legal irregularities to light. Seventy-four permanent workers were sacked late in 2008, and the union has taken up cases on 62, with an Industrial Relations Court issuing unfair dismissals. But Goodyear has appealed the ruling. 
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Goodyear&rsquo;s obstinacy over the contract labour issue is reminiscent of 2005-2006 when the union fought for, and mainly won, a case involving 18 contract workers in the warehouse. In November 2006, the Industrial Court made Goodyear pay up to ten years&rsquo; backpay to the workers. 
 
The ICEM commends the Tyre Makers&rsquo; Union and President Aukaphol Thongdeeleard and other trade unionists for continuing to press Goodyear on this issue, and especially with actively recruiting fixed-term workers into their ranks. The ICEM also encourages contract workers at Goodyear-Bangkok to stand up for themselves by actively joining the PCFT. 
 
Equal rights for contract and agency workers is ICEM&rsquo;s theme this year for Day of Decent Work, 7 October, and activities of the Global Union Federation will centre on worksites in Thailand and Turkey. The situation at Goodyear in Thailand is an issue that all rubber workers must mobilise around; to support the solid work being done by the ICEM affiliate, particularly with the collective bargaining agreement up for renewal this month. 
 
The Tyre Makers&rsquo; Union at Goodyear-Thailand is also resisting a unilateral management policy that it maintains the right to dismiss any employee who has family members or relatives working for a rival company of Goodyear. Brother Aukaphol called it a violation of privacy rights and vowed the union will challenge the recent policy.

Contract Labour Issue Again Surfaces at Goodyear-Thailand Ltd.

On the eve of World AIDS Day, 1 December, the ICEM leadership recommitted to fight the battle to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS through awareness, education, and poverty eradication campaigns. The ICEM&rsquo;s 4th World Congress, held 22-24 November in Bangkok, Thailand, affirmed that commitment. 
 
&ldquo;As the newly-elected leaders, we reaffirm ICEM&rsquo;s commitment to fight HIV/AIDS,&rdquo; said ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana and General Secretary Manfred Warda. &ldquo;Hundreds of union leaders representing 180 affiliates in 75 countries signed the pledge for World AIDS Day at our Congress.&rdquo; 
 
That pledge, signed by not only the 840 trade unions leaders attending the Bangkok Congress, but taken back to national unions for thousands more signatures, commits the trade unionists to take the fight inside the workplace. 
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It commits to outright rejection of all forms of discrimination and victimisation of people living with HIV/AIDS; it recognises that the gender dimension of HIV/AIDS, and promises to fight for equal gender relations and the empowerment of women; and, in maintaining ICEM&rsquo;s continued work in this area, it encourages voluntary counselling and testing of workers and family members, as well as providing support for those who disclose their HIV-positive status. 
 
The pledge also makes demands of employers and governments. It demands that companies negotiate policies with trade union that are in sync with the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work; it calls on employers to implement awareness-raising and prevention programmes jointly with trade unions; it call on firms operating in remote geographic areas with little or no health services to take responsibility for providing care and treatment; and it promises to undertake efforts to obtain affordable drugs from pharmaceutical companies and production of high-quality generics for those afflicted with the virus. 
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Regarding governments, the pledge advocates access for all to public health, including free or affordable antiretroviral treatments; it promises to promote legislation on discrimination and social protection; and it promises to lobby donor countries for accelerated financial resources for the global fight against HIV/AIDS. 
 
&ldquo;The ICEM and its affiliates are strategically positioned in our sectors, and in our thousands of workplaces, to play a direct role in stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS,&rdquo; said Zokwana and Warda. &ldquo;On World AIDS Day 2007, we call on all social partners to intensify campaigns in order to reverse the HIV/AIDS pandemic.&rdquo; 
 
The International Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) is a 20-million-member Global Union Federation based in Brussels, Belgium.

ICEM Reconfirms Commitment to Fight HIV/AIDS Pandemic

The International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) concluded its 4th World Congress today, 24 November, in Bangkok, Thailand, with sharply worded motions calling for economic sanctions against the military regime in Burma, and on establishment of trade union rights in Iraq. The Iraq resolution also called for the earliest possible withdrawal of occupational military forces from the Middle Eastern country. 
 
A total of 840 trade union leaders from 176 global ICEM affiliates, representing 75 countries, attended the three-day Congress. 
 
The final day was marked by impassioned speeches from the General Secretary of the exiled Federation of Trade Unions of Burma (FTUB) and from central leaders of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), a collection of ten oil workers&rsquo; union in southern Iraq, and from the Kurdistan General Workers&rsquo; Syndicate of Unions (KGWSU). 
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FTUB General Secretary Maung Maung at the ICEM Congress
Opening the last day&rsquo;s session was Maung Maung, General Secretary of the FTUB. He said the recent street protests in Burma are not over and Burmese people will carry their struggle for liberation and national democracy to the end. &ldquo;Economic sanctions and international pressure do hurt this regime,&rdquo; Maung said, urging as much international pressure as possible because &ldquo;the regime is cracking.&rdquo; 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s motion calls on all global unions to &ldquo;exert their influence&rdquo; and &ldquo;to approach their governments so that the international community can jointly pressurize the military regime to restore democracy.&rdquo; 
 
Two key speakers from the oil and gas sector rose to support the motion. Gary Beevers, a Vice President and Oil Bargaining Chairman for the United Steelworkers in the United States, said his union has taken action against US-based Chevron for its gas dealings with the regime. 
 
And Marc Blanc, of the French trade union FCE-CFDT, announced that his union federation &ndash; together with four other French trade unions &ndash; will host the FTUB in Paris on December 20. The meeting will center on Total&rsquo;s activities in Burma, and will occur in conjunction with the Executive Committee of Total&rsquo;s European Works Council. 
 
On the Iraq motion, Hassan Juma&rsquo;a Awad al Assadi of the IFTU told delegates the US administration of George Bush came to Iraq with a Hydrocarbons Law that &ldquo;would steal our oil reserves.&rdquo; 
 
&ldquo;The Iraqi people are the only ones who should decide and control their oil wealth,&rdquo; he said. He also called upon the current Iraqi government and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to expedite legislation inside Iraq called the Labour and Social Security Law, which would secure legitimate labour rights for all Iraqi workers. 
 
Siddeeq Ramadhan of the KGWSU told delegates that Kurdistan is a &ldquo;devoted part of Iraq&rdquo; with a desire to live in peace with Iraq&rsquo;s neighbours. 
 
The ICEM&rsquo;s final session also passed a motion on installing more safety measures in the mining secure, and called for governments to pass ILO Convention 176 on Safety and Health in Mines. The ICEM also passed a motion support the International Trade Union Confederation&rsquo;s (ITUC) Decent Work Initiative.

ICEM Congress Closes with Strong Motions on Burma, Iraq

The 4th World Congress of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine &amp; General Workers&rsquo; Unions (ICEM) opened today, 22 November, in Bangkok, Thailand, with a full slate of speakers, as well as pointed discussion on the future course of the 20-million-member Global Union Federation (GUF). Some 840 trade union leaders from 176 national trade unions in 75 countries are attending the three-day Congress at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre. 
 
Global union leaders also addressed the risks to workers of asset-stripping private equity firms, and delegates heard recent examples of job losses caused by such speculative financial tools. The quadrennial Congress, gathered under the banner &lsquo;Global Unity &ndash; Global Equality,&rsquo; continues on Friday, 23 November, with an address by Maung Maung, head of the exiled Burmese labour federation FTUB. 
 

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Italo Rodomonti and Manfred Warda signing ICEM-WFIW integration agreement
The Congress will also consider a host of motions, including one on Burma, labour disputes occurring in the host country, Thailand, a location change of the labour federation from Brussels, Belgium, to Geneva, Switzerland, and one on creating closer cooperation with other GUFs. The election of ICEM General Secretary and President will also occur on 23 November. 
 
Following a welcome by Kyoshi Ochiai of Japanese labour federation UI Zensen, chairman of ICEM&rsquo;s Asia-Pacific Region, delegates heard from Rawi Pupaga, head of ICEM&rsquo;s Thai umbrella of labour unions. He delivered news that a negotiated settlement is near at hand with Thailand&rsquo;s Health Ministry to halt the interim government&rsquo;s plan to privatise the Government Pharmaceutical Organisation. 
Today&rsquo;s session included formal integration of the World Federation of Industrial Workers into the ICEM, a Christian-based network of trade unions. 
 
Featured speaker in the opening session was Guy Ryder, General Secretary of the 168-million-member International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Ryder&rsquo;s comments centered on the shifting and real sentiment inside global trade unions of consolidation and closer cooperation. He spoke on the founding in January 2007 of the Global Unions Councils, an action-oriented structure to link the work of the world&rsquo;s 11 GUFs, as well as the ITUC and the Trade Union Advisory Committee of the OECD. 
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ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana
&ldquo;This will not be a dead piece of administration bureaucracy,&rdquo; Ryder promised. &ldquo;We now have the opportunity to work together to identify common priorities, and to design and fund work plans which will benefit from our combined talents, expertise, and strength. 
 
In a keynote speech delivered by ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of South Africa, he addressed growing trade union concern on the increasing number of deaths occurring in the mining industry. &ldquo;How many more deaths, anguish, and sorrow must be visited upon innocent mineworkers, their families, and the communities in which they live before we can say enough is enough?&rdquo; he asked. 
 
The Congress opened to the sad news that 100 coal miners had perished in a methane gas explosion in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. And Zokwana&rsquo;s own union, the NUM, has now planned a one-day strike for 4 December across the entire mining sector of South Africa to protest the lack of regard for health and safety by mining houses operating in the mineral-rich nation. It will mark the first total shutdown of all mines in South Africa in 20 years. 
 
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda presented the GUF&rsquo;s Secretariat Report, and cited several examples on where union action or voter power has changed the agenda for capital markets. &ldquo;We should never agree with any government&rsquo;s argument that they cannot control the so-called invincible forces of globalisation,&rdquo; he said. 
 
Warda highlighted the ICEM&rsquo;s work on helping to stop the spread of the HIV/AIDS around worksites of the extractive industries, as well as giving instances in which engagement with multinational companies on meaningful social dialogue has produced tangible results. 
 
Henk Van Der Kolk, president of the national union FNV Bondgenoten in The Netherlands, addressed the issue of private equity, and how the rapid movement of capital has undermined workers&rsquo; rights and created mass job losses. He challenged the ICEM to examine how private equity funds are violating the code of conduct of the OECD, as well as rules of the WTO. He also suggested the time might be ripe for the ICEM, or the ITUC, to seek Global Framework Agreements with private equity concerns in order to bring a social dimension to such capital funds. 
 
The Bangkok Congress of the ICEM is featuring speeches and appearances by seven Iraqi trade unionists coming from the oil sector as well as the electric power sector.

ICEM Congress Opens with Cry of Better Mine Safety, Curbs to Capital Markets

Throughout a one-day, 21 November, ICEM conference on Contract and Agency Labour (CAL), taking place prior to the Global Union Federation&rsquo;s 4th ICEM World Congress in Bangkok, Thailand, speaker after speaker confirmed that the trend of industry subcontracting is rapidly increasing throughout the world. 
 
Predominant is the continuing trend of subcontracting in developing nations. With few exceptions, the 300 trade unionists attending cited specific problems with agency, temporary, short-term contract, or self-employment labour, relating directly to the lack of a (decent) employment relationship. 
 
For many of the world&rsquo;s workers, affecting most industries, a prior, normal relationship has been reduced to one of much lesser quality. For others, the relationship has changed to a mere commercial one, with workers&rsquo; taking the job security risks, and an erosion of social benefits affecting both workers and society. 
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The ICEM conference produced several examples in which subcontracting is becoming rampant on several continents. In the mining and diamond sector of India, virtually all miners are contract labourers. In Thailand and Korea, examples were cited where CAL work is omnipresent. 
 
Africa was described as globalisation&rsquo;s play ground. In the mining sector of sub-Saharan Africa, many problems are created by investors who think anything in the employment realm is possible. Other examples came from a wide variety of countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, United States, Japan, Tanzania, Peru, and the UK. 
 
A special contribution came from Hassan J&rsquo;Aama, President of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU). 
 
The conference also delivered, however, case studies in which unions and trade unionists have succeeded in rolling back the trend. One such example came from Brazil. At the oil firm Petrobras four years ago, there were three contract workers for each permanent worker. Today, after sound bargaining by trade unions, the ratio is one permanent worker to every one-and-a-half contract worker. 
 
Chile, Uruguay, South Africa, Macedonia, and Croatia were also quoted as countries where progress has been made, both legislatively and at the collective bargaining table. 
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Hassan J&rsquo;Aama, President of Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)
Given the difficult situation in many countries, and the need by many to hear how others deal with temporary or agency labour, the ICEM was called upon to continue and intensify its three-year-old campaign on this employment issue. 
 
A key ingredient of this work is the need to guarantee that all CAL workers - everywhere - are entitled to the same wages, benefits, and work rights as the permanent workers. 
 
Also stressed was the importance of legislation efforts in regard to contract and agency labour, preferably at nation-wide level. The principles of the ILO Recommendation 198, the Employment Relationship Recommendation, will be an important tool in this. 
 
Finally, it was agreed that unions need to reach out to short-term contract or temporary workers. In too many countries, such workers have faced resentment from trade union members. Setting up unions, or union divisions, for CAL workers, or &ndash; by many, the preferred option &ndash; simply bringing CAL workers into existing union structures, is seen as an important and needed accomplishment.&nbsp;

Contract and Agency Labour - a Global and Negative Phenomenon

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A key precedent was set in the UK in late October 2007 when an Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that UK Coal must pay 330 miners back-wages for a sudden pit closure in 2005. The paltry &pound;2 million pay-out, however, pales next to the precedent now set; that UK workers made redundant are entitled to the same benefits as EU workers. This especially includes mandatory consulting with trade unions on redundancy matters. 
 
The National Union of Mineworkers&rsquo; of the UK filed the case on safety issues when bosses suddenly closed UK Coal&rsquo;s Ellington Colliery in northeast England in January 2005. The mine was flooded by higher waters from the North Sea.
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UK Coal averted dialogue with the union, citing external forces as the cause of the flooding, thus claiming to be exempt from a mandatory 90-day consultation period with the union over safety issues. The Employment Appeal Tribunal, however, disagreed and upheld a May ruling by a lower jobs court that UK Coal has to pay the miners&rsquo; the 90-day pay, or between &pound;4,000-7,000 per worker. 
 
UK Coal is an enterprise created from the privatisation of British Coal in 1993. 
 
The ruling in Great Britain made the business elite jittery. Associations quickly called meetings of HR staff and others to dissect the ruling and its effect on other EU-UK comparisons regarding work standards. UK Coal responded by deflecting the union&rsquo;s call for a quick pay-out so that money owed will help working families this Christmas. The company said it needed time to study the court ruling before deciding whether or not to appeal the case further.

UK Coal Ruling Lifts British Standards Regarding Redundancies

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Some ten coal mine disasters in China were recorded over the past month, leaving 100 dead. And last week, the China State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) issued an alert stating that the number of coal mine accidents might increase in the coming months, as production accelerates to meet winter demand. 
 
October was another deadly month in China&rsquo;s coal mines, where an estimated 20,000 workers die each year from industrial accidents, methane explosions, floods, and illegal mining. 
The latest reported tragedy occurred on Friday, 2 November, when a shaft tunnel collapsed, killing nine miners. This occurred at the licensed Shanxi Jinle Coal Mine in Xinzhou city, in China&rsquo;s northern Shanxi province. A few days earlier, on 28 October, in Jiangxi provice at the Lingzian colliery, at a township-owned mine, floods poured into mine shafts, taking the lives of nine miners. One worker was rescued, but only after three days. 
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On 26 October, nine perished in northwest Shanxi province, also because of flooding. This occurred at the Yaotou coal mine near Weinan City. The mine is a registered private mine, with annual output of 60,000 tonnes. 
 
A day earlier, on 25 October, a small, illegal mine was rocked by an underground explosion, killing 11. That happened at the Yuejin coal mine, Chongqing, southwest China. The board chairman, local manager, and two other senior managers were arrested a few days after the explosion. 
On 22 October, a newly dug transport tunnel at the Yinying coal mine in Taiyuan, northern China, collapsed, killing 13 people living in row houses above the mine. Some of the dead were miners and family members. The incident occurred in the middle of the night and no one was working the mine at the time. 
Also on 22 October, three Chinese miners died and seven were injured following an explosion inside a township-run mine at Puqian in Hengfeng county, northeastern Jiangxi province. The miners were 285 metres underground performing maintenance work. On 13 October, 19 miners were buried alive after a gas explosion caused a massive coal slide that came rumbling down a 30-metre-wide tunnel. This also occurred in Jiangxi province. Some 261 miners managed to escape the deadly accident at the Jianxin colliery. 
<img height="132" alt="" src="" width="300" />
Jianzin also was the mine that claimed the lives of 49 miners in 2003 from a gas explosion, and in August 2006, five were killed from a blast. 
 
On 7 October, eight died, including three rescue workers, following flooding of the Chankeng mine in Fujian province. And a day earlier, on 6 October, ten miners died from a methane explosion at the Shunxing mine in eastern Yunnan province. The mine was legal but a week prior to the blast, a county mine safety inspector had ordered Shunzing to suspend production in order that the mine&rsquo;s shafts undergo repairs. 
 
Last year, China saw a 2.04 death rate for every one million tonnes of coal mined. Total Chinese coal production is expected to top 2.5 billion tonnes this year, with annual production growth this year over last year expected to be 11.5%. SAWS, on 1 November, announced it was soliciting public submissions on a draft plan regarding 604 safety production standards to go into effect between 2007 and 2010. The proposed standards are in 10 work sectors, including coal mines, non-coal mining, and chemicals and fireworks production.

Mine Deaths Continue to Plague China, State Work Safety Administration

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With the ICEM&rsquo;s Bangkok Congress just two weeks away, the familiar privatisation saga of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) is again back in the news. The ICEM has given a vibrant global voice to this struggle for four years, and we&rsquo;re proud now to bring trade unionists of the world an update. 
 
In March 2006, the Supreme Administrative Court ordered Thaksin&rsquo;s EGAT privatisation plan cancelled, and in September 2006, Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra himself was cancelled. EGAT-LU, the 18,000-member ICEM affiliate at the national utility, helped make that happen through relentless four years of strikes and marches to stop Thaksin&rsquo;s 25% stock float of their power company. 
<img height="387" alt="" src="" width="250" />
EGAT-LU demonstration in 2006
This year, Thailand&rsquo;s interim government resurrected parts of the failed EGAT privatisation plan, revising portions into something called the Energy Operation Bill. EGAT-LU has called for mobilisation against this draft measure; it has quickly brought consumer groups back in opposition; and demonstrations are sure to intensify this week when the bill is scheduled to be heard in the National Legislative Assembly. 
 
Part of the opaque leftovers from Thaksin&rsquo;s plan are included in the interim government&rsquo;s bill. Specifically, the draft bills calls for creation of a privatisation policy committee having too few members, but having wide latitudes to determine all privatisation matters. 
 
On 26 October, EGAT-LU called for mobilisations at EGAT worksites across Thailand. Small rallies have already begun against the Energy Operation Bill, and the union conducted bigger ones last week at EGAT&rsquo;s headquarters in Nonthaburi. After experiencing difficult and prolonged negotiations with the government over privatisation, EGAT-LU has called for the bill to be scrapped, particularly with the military&rsquo;s interim government coming to an end. Democratic elections are scheduled to take place on 23 December 2007 in Thailand.
<img height="67" alt="" src="" width="100" />
&nbsp;&ldquo;Privatisation affects all people in this country and such an important matter cannot be left to just a handful of authorities that have not been elected by the people,&rdquo; said EGAT-LU Chairman Sirichai Main-gam. &ldquo;The bill gives sweeping power to one committee to supervise privatisation schemes,&rdquo; he said, adding that the committee is vacant of any &ldquo;people&rsquo;s participation.&rdquo; 
 
EGAT-LU and its allied consumer and human rights groups know something about civilian participation in the affairs of state. They did it between 2002 and 2006. It is part of the fallen Thaksin legacy. They now insist that a critical issue such as privatising EGAT cannot occur before the democratic voice of the country is heard.

EGAT-LU Fights to Stop Thai Interim Government’s ‘Energy Operation Bill’

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Contract workers represented by ICEM UK affiliate Unite began the first of industrial actions at a Kimberly-Clark paper mill in Northfleet, Kent, on 12 October. The 38 workers of TDG, formerly called Transport Development Group, staged a 12-hour strike on that day, and they plan a further 24-hour strike over tomorrow and Wednesday, 23-24 October. 
<img height="302" alt="" src="" width="200" />
The London-based employer responded by replacing the members of the Amicus section of Unite on 12 October. The dispute is over lack of parity in 2007 pay raises between Kimberly-Clark workers at Northfleet, also members of Unite, and the TDG workers. In previous years, the company had matched raises that Kimberly-Clark workers received. 
 
At another UK tissue mill of Kimberly-Clark near Barrow-in-Furness, in Cumbria in northwest England, TDG did just that this year, granting a 4.5% pay increase. The TDG workers at both sites work in the warehouses of the American-based company. TDG has provided contract services for the paper-maker since 2002, and is a major European logistical and supply-chain distributor of chemicals and consumer goods. 
 
Trade unionists are encouraged to send letters of support to Unite&rsquo;s representative, Paul Baker, at <a href="mailto:paul.baker@unitetheunion.org">paul.baker@unitetheunion.org</a>.

Paper Mill Logistic Workers Take Industrial Action in UK

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Despite increased labour and human rights pressure on the Islamic regime, Iran&rsquo;s government is still refusing access and giving misleading reports on the condition of imprisoned transport union leader Mansour Osanloo. The International Transport Workers&rsquo; Federation (ITF) is calling recent efforts to reach Osanloo by Indonesian activists a &ldquo;cynical catalogue of dirty tricks&rdquo; by Iran. 
 
The government assured Indonesian trade unionists seeking to visit Osanloo in Tehran&rsquo;s Evin prison the week of 8 October that the he was receiving treatment for a two-year-old eye injury. The Indonesian activists, as well as Osanloo&rsquo;s wife, Parvenah, were told by authorities that they could not visit the 47-year-old trade unionist because he was receiving treatment.
<img height="101" alt="" src="" width="120" />
But a prison doctor admitted to the Indonesians later that, if he is not treated within the next two weeks, he could go blind. The Indonesians that visited Iran were Hanafi Rusrandi, Seafarers' Union president and ITF's national coordinating committee chairman, and Syukur Sarto, the general secretary of national centre FSPSI.
&ldquo;The Iranian government is piling outrage on outrage, digging deeper and deeper into a barrel of dirty tricks,&rdquo; said ITF general David Cockroft. &ldquo;All the evidence we have is that this is a cold blooded and deliberate attempt to weaken and undermine the most significant union leader in Iran today.&rdquo; 
<img height="100" alt="" src="" width="100" />
Osanloo was arrested for the third time on 10 July 2007, following a tour of European labour institutions and labour unions, in which he spoke openly of labour abuses and restrictions on freedom of association in Iran. He has been in prison since. In May 2005, he sustained eye injuries when beaten by Iranian security forces. Osanloo is the leader of Sherkat-e Vahed, the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Workers&rsquo; Union. 
 
The ITF, last week, released a video entitled &ldquo;Freedom Will Come&rdquo; on his story and the story of bus workers&rsquo; efforts to organise in Tehran. It was posted late last week on YouTube and will shortly be available on DVD. The London-based Global Union Federation has also launched a petition campaign in support of Osanloo. It can be found <a href="http://www.itfglobal.org/campaigns/freeosanloo.cfm">here</a>.&nbsp;

‘Dirty Tricks’ Imposed by Iranian Government over Imprisonment of Mansour Osanloo

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